Baragouiner

The French words baragouin and baragouiner came up in conversation yesterday and I thought I’d write about them today as they have an interesting etymology.

According to Reversobaragouin means ‘gibberish, gabble or double Dutch’ and baragouiner ‘means ‘to gibber, jabber, gabble’. The Larousse Dictionary defines baragouin as language that is incomprehensible due to poor pronunciation, vocabulary or syntax, or an incomprehensible foreign language; and baragouiner as to talk a foreign language, incorrect pronounciation, or to express something in an incomprehensible way.

According to Wikitionaire and Le Dictionnaire d’étymologie française, these words come from two Breton words – bara (bread) and gwin (wine) – things that Breton-speaking travellers often asked for from French-speaking inn keepers during the Middle Ages and which the French speakers particularly noticed. As the French speakers didn’t understand what the Bretons were saying, they associated these words with gibberish or an incomprehensible language.

Hmm.. “Bara” and “gwin” are actually Welsh words for bread and wine (respectively). While Breton is very similar to Welsh (having come from the same root) I didn’t think the words were quite that exactly the same.

D.Jay – the phrase Double Dutch does indeed mean nonsense of gibberish in British English. The phrase is also used to refer to thing that are very confusing of difficult, including the jump rope (skipping) game you refer to.

The Breton version of ‘gibberish’, ‘double Dutch’ is:
gregachiñ – v. baragouiner
gregach – n. baragouin
‘Gregach’ is from greg ‘Greek’, gresineg (Greek language) and also another Breton term for baragouin, gibberish is:
saoznaj – ‘English’
Derived from saozneg (English language) saozn + suffix -aj which is the equivalent of French and English suffix -age I think?